Sabotage
by trufflemores
Summary: 4x16. "It's cement!" Blam! to the rescue. In which Sam helps a friend in need. Blaine/Sam friendship, brief Kurt/Blaine romance. COMPLETE.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Glee or any of its characters; Ryan Murphy and Co. hold that honor. I'm simply writing this for fun, not profit.

"Look, dude, we can - we can fix this, maybe if we just use peanut butter or something?"

"Sam, there is _cement _in my _hair, _I don't think peanut butter is going to fix anything!"

Sam sighed, running a hand through his own wavy locks - (Blaine glowered at him with an unflinching _damn the uncemented bastard_ look on his face)- and suggesting, "Stick your head under a faucet, crack an egg on it, _I don't know. _I've never seen anyone put that much cement in their hair."

"It wasn't that much!" Blaine wailed, clutching at both sides of his hair. "Who even _does _this?"

"Uh, Coach Sue, obviously, but - "

"Rhetorical question!"

Sam bit his lip against a snappy retort - _Just trying to help, dude _- as he watched Blaine pace in the locker room. He'd called a 'Code Red' on the nightphone, which usually meant that some dire emergency had arisen, except when Sam had arrived - ready to put out the fire or stop the murderer, whichever - all he saw was Blaine, pacing in the middle of the locker room, looking ... utterly, perplexingly normal.

It hadn't taken long to see why there was such a particularly uniform smoothness to his hair, though, and Blaine hadn't stopped ranting since.

And sure, Sam thought that it was a little far-fetched to take out thirty credit cards and a house loan in someone's name (half-wondering how the hell Blaine's parents could afford _that). _And yes, the 'BLAINE IS ON THE BOTTOM' sign was kind of an invasion of privacy. But they'd totally agreed to stick it out, regardless of how bad things got, because they had set their minds to it. Besides, Coach Sue had a tendency to play dirty - she'd blackmailed _Figgins _- and so it didn't surprise him that she'd pulled out all the stops in the pre-fight rounds.

Still.

_Cement. _

"I'll Google it," Sam suggested, walking over to Blaine's abandoned satchel and pulling out his iPad. "What's your password?"

Blaine rolled his eyes, padding over to him and picking up the iPad, typing something in quickly before opening up a Google search. "Okay, okay, we can do this - "

"I'll go get a towel," Sam offered, getting up. Blaine nodded once distractedly, already scrolling through the search results.

They'd faced worse before, Sam reminded himself bracingly, wetting one of the clean towels under the showerhead before wringing it out and padding back over. In a way, it was reassuring, to know that they weren't perfect.

Sam had almost passed out during Glee club rehearsal one afternoon, and Blaine had been there to pick up the pieces. (Of course, he'd fallen _on top of _Blaine, so he wasn't surprised that he was the first to respond.) Blaine hadn't cracked then and told the others about his suspicions, even though it was pretty clear that Sam wasn't eating well and exercising way too much, and Sam appreciated that. It had been embarrassing enough to lose control like that, even if it was for only a handful of seconds: having Blaine around to smooth it over helped.

Of course, almost through some karma-driven desire to make him feel better, Blaine then threw up three weeks later in the middle of their morning routine. Stress over exams and over-compensating with too much water and not enough food had been the root cause of it all, and Sam felt that the debt had somehow been repaid, then, when he was the one to calm everyone down and sort of shuffle Blaine off to the nurse. (It had only taken Ryder's quick head-shake to discourage him from picking him up and carrying him fireman style; in retrospect, he doubly appreciated the consideration, given that Blaine might have thrown up again all over his back.)

This was new and exciting, though, and Sam couldn't recall any handy homemade solutions to a cement hair helmet. "We could try cracking it," he added lightly, dropping the wet towel on top of Blaine's head and earning a vexed grunt in reply.

"I can't even find anything," he said, scrolling down another page, his fingers starting to tremble slightly at the edges. "There aren't any natural remedies for this, how am I supposed to - "

"Dude," Sam said, giving his shoulder a squeeze, forcing him to step back a little. "We're gonna figure this out, okay? Maybe you should just . . . do whatever you do when it's regular hair gel."

Blaine reached up and knocked on his head once, eloquently.

"Okay, so, maybe you can't work it through like you normally do, but there's gotta be something," Sam insisted, nudging his shoulder with his own as he sat down beside him.

Blaine sighed, prying the towel off his head and dropping it on the bench beside him with a wet smack. "It's permanent," he decided morosely, reaching up to run his fingers over the helmet once more.

"C'mon. Nightbird doesn't think like that," Sam said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"Nightbird doesn't have _cement hair,_" Blaine quipped, dropping his head into his hands, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Hey," Sam said, rubbing his back slightly. "It's okay. I'm sure it's happened before. Haven't you ever seen America's Funniest Home videos?"

Blaine sniffed, and Sam felt his stomach clench. _No. Not the tears. Anything but the tears. _"Look, we'll go back to your place and figure it out, okay? And I'll help you pick out a set list for next week once we're done."

Blaine drew in a deep, slightly shuddering breath, nodding once at last and lifting his head. He was dry-eyed, but his swallow was audible, throat clicking a little as he said, "Okay."

And so that was how they ended up at Blaine's place, emptying every cabinet in the house for any even remotely helpful creams, shampoos, and conditioners. (Sam even had his way and convinced Blaine to try peanut butter which, needless to say, didn't do much more than make Blaine smell like a cross between a grease monkey and a PBJ sandwich.)

"It's never gonna come out," Blaine whined, thoroughly disheartened, as he leaned back against the counter, hands at either side of his head (Sam was relatively certain that he would have buried them in his hair if he could).

In spite of his high hopes and ruthless optimism, Sam couldn't help but think that maybe cement and hair were so mutually exclusive that there really wasn't a solution.

If there was one thing Sam Evans wasn't, though, it was a quitter.

"We still haven't tried mayonnaise," he offered.

Blaine gave him such a pained look that he only held up his hands in concession, adding, "Sorry."

"It has to come out eventually," Blaine said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than Sam. "Even regular cement breaks apart."

"Maybe we just need to break it apart," Sam suggested.

Blaine frowned, pursing his lips.

"We could call Kurt," Sam blurted, inspiration striking as he pulled out his phone. "What's his number?"

"He's probably working late," Blaine warned, but he rattled it off and waited anxiously for a response.

"Hey, Kurt? Hey, yeah, it's me. Listen, we've, uh. Have you ever been in a situation where you accidentally used the wrong thing and then it turned out to be really bad and - "

"Sue put cement in my hair," Blaine interjected, gently prying the phone out of Sam's grip before he could further confuse the situation. Sam pouted at him, listening to him mm-hm, some of the tension in his shoulders easing as he talked. It was a different side of Blaine, the one that interacted with Kurt; softer, more vulnerable somehow. The little spitfire that commandeered their Glee club didn't have the same weakness to a friendly voice, a listening ear. (Not in public, at least; in private, Blaine was receptive and warm and almost the same. Almost. But not quite.)

"Thanks. Thank you. Yes, yes, I'll text you. I promise. Uh huh. Love you, too. Bye." He hung up and passed the phone back to Sam, who looked expectant. With a sigh, Blaine explained, "I have to soak it and then use a special conditioner on it. Just keep going at it. Apparently it'll loosen it up enough at the ends that I'll be able to work it through."

Sam nodded, looking thoughtful. "Do you still have the Dark Knight trilogy on Blu-ray?"

"Be my guest," Blaine allowed wearily, waving a hand as he padded off towards the bathroom.

Sam gleefully claimed one of the couches in Blaine's living room (which was easily twice the size of his own) and turned the TV on, settling in for a Batman marathon as he waited.

Two hours later, Blaine emerged, looking more than a little water-logged but also vaguely pleased, a slightly pained smile on his face. "Hey, dude," Sam greeted, pausing the movie as he scooted over to accommodate him on the couch. "How's the hair?"

"Cement-free, or near to it," Blaine said, sounding relieved, as he sunk onto the cushions and shot off a quick text to Kurt on his phone. "Sorry for keeping you."

"Oh, hey, no, it's fine. I'm totally cool with this. Besides, the high def is like . . . insane. I'm so into it."

"Don't let me interrupt you," Blaine said, turning back to his phone as it vibrated, responding quickly before setting it aside. "Do you want popcorn or anything?"

"Do you have the non-buttery kind?"

Blaine rolled his eyes but stood up and, returning two minutes later with a bowl, plopped down onto the space beside him once more. Sam was already staring at the screen with an almost religious dedication, though, reflexively accepting the bowl as Blaine slide it into his grasp.

"You're such a dork," he chided.

Sam's lips quirked in a smile even as he rolled his eyes and said, "Shh. Best part. I'll restart it if you talk over it."

Blaine held his hands up in mute surrender, picking up his abandoned satchel and going over his work, Sam crunching away on the popcorn.

And if Sam tossed a half-full bowl of popcorn in Blaine's face with a loud, "Holy shit!" after dozing off in the middle of the third movie, then at least the popcorn kernels were easier to remove than cement.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: I love Blam.

**Review?**

**P.S. Apologies! I mis-categorized this in my haste to publish it; it's still here, it's now under the (far more appropriate) Blaine/Sam combo. Thank you, Nonny! Sorry about any inconvenience/misleading.**


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